By Daniel Tyokua
Aggrieved Abuja residents have broke into a government warehouse and looted food items in the facility located at Gwagwa-Tasha community in Abuja.
The food items looted included 50kg bags of corn, millets and other grains.
The AUTHORITY gathered that trouble started at about 7am on Sunday, when some residents of the area saw a trailer vehicle loading some bags of grains from the facility, to be taken to an unknown destination.
Eyewitnesses said the situation annoyed many people in the area, who didn’t even know that the facility has such a number of grains.
“Many people have been facing hunger and starvation, due to the bad economy.
“So, seeing a trailer vehicle loading these grains, was unbearable to them. And that was why they swooped on the facility and started taking the grains”, a resident confirmed.
Another resident of the area, who gave his name as Halilu said, “the looting was not only carried out by residents of the immediate community, alleging that some persons from neighbouring Jiwa and Karmo towns took part in the looting.
He said some police officers, who were drafted to the facility to stop the looting were overwhelmed as they couldn’t arrest anybody.
It would be recalled that the warehouse, owned by the Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat (ARDS) of the FCT administration was also looted during the Covid-19 lockdown, when bags of grains as well as pumping machines, meant for intervention and other items were stolen from the facility by looters.
When contacted, FCT police spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, said the police were already on ground trying to control the situation.
